Got up very early (3:45, yikes) Friday morning to make our early flight. Flew United and it felt so (un)good; got charged 20 dollars to check a bag and received no gratis food en route. Boo. We did get to spend two hours in layover in Chicago, where I was exposed to two memorable too-loud-on-the-cellphone conversations (Topic 1, a woman who broke her pelvis doing pregnant yoga; Topic 2; man on vacation whose clients were being stolen while he was away from work. JUICY). I left my academia at home for the trip (which probably means I am a big fat slacker), opting to bring several issues of Philosophy Now and Believer to help weigh down my carry-on. Beck survived the flights using the usual combo of novels and B-movies. The rides were pretty smooth, all things considered, and definitely several notches above both "3 AM drop out of the sky" (featured in our last flight to NYC) and "Windowless Seats," a particularly harrowing experience we had on the way back from Virginia last year.
Arrived at iPChateau to the pleasant churgle-gurgling of a clogged kitchen sink. Seems someone had undertaken the performance art piece entitled "Aged Asparagus: Down the Disposal?" earlier that day, and the pipes were none too pleased. Zil stopped by a little later; we caught up on her hopping softball and soccer and lake-hanging-out and Wilco-concert-going lifestyle. While the iPJ toiled at the clog with 200 gallons of DranO, Beck and I headed to the airport to pick up fresh-from-Amsterdam Meghan and Greg. But you know what the funniest thing about America is? It's the little differences. I mean, we got the same customs and homeland security that they got there, but here... here it's just a little different. Example? Sure. Seems that Greg (REDACTED BY AGENT 53921).
(Woah. How downright Orwellian. Suffice it to say that if you happen to share the same name and birthday as an international criminal, you haven't shaved recently and you are somewhat olive-complected, then you are in for some FUN TIMES at JFK Int'l Airport. The most amazing thing of the whole tale is that (REDACTED BY AGENT 53921) and they still made their connection for the flight to Rochester).
Oh, but FUN TIMES were not over yet... sure, you can get your bags across the ocean and through customs, but can you get them from NYC to Rochester? Uh, no. Meghan's bag successfully made it through customs, but it didn't make it from the Jetblue baghandler's hands to the Jetblue airplane. So I addition to getting (REDACTED BY AGENT 53921) at JFK, Meghan and Greg got to spend an hour filling out forms for lost baggage that contained all of Meghan's clothes AND a stash of Dutch liquor. Argh! Beck and I enjoyed this debacle from the comfort of the cell phone lot, where we got quite familiar with Rochester's radio stations.
We finally made it back to the homestead where the pipes were still clogged (but a real-life, after 6 pm on a Friday plumber was on the way). Sat down to a delicious iPDinner and enjoyed the company while the plumber used some kind of medieval mechanical death snake to scrape the innards of the house and unclog the drain. Game on for the reunion! We headed to bed.
Saturday, woke up and got things loosely in order for the throngs of Isaac's (no, not that Isaac; that's Margie's family) descendants. They descended upon the house from 1:30-2:00, including Robbie who *brought his soccer work* with him, a big faux pas. I helped out his diligent lineup setting by adding to the roster names like Billy Scoresalot, Joe Keepsemout and Tommy AllHands. I am not confident that he noticed. We had chips and snacks and cheeses and you name it to drink; quite the festive affair. It would b ridiculous for me to even attempt to remember all of the people who arrived, but it was a healthy showing of all but a few of the 478 living relatives of the iPJ.
The kids were in effect: Ethan, Mike and Kathy's son, is now four and has a little sister named Madeleine. He seemed to have a great time, doing no less than playing in a fort and a ship, falling and getting his clothes dirty, cheering at his own pictures in the slideshow, stumbling into a patch of wasps (no stings!), laughing at all jokes understood or not, and playing with a disposable camera with which he nabbed this shot of me:
Maybe next year we'll work on "framing" or "centering the subject." The big tale, of course, was the interaction I had with Alec and Ian and their cousins Elyssa and Savannah. I recorded this story for posterity in the Official Reunion Log (TM), but the gist is that Alec and Ian were tyrannically and sexistly playing some game of cops where their goal was to arrest and imprison the girls. I could not let this stand, so I helped the girls escape AND prevented their pursuit by Alec, at which time he screamed:You're a traitor to boys everywhere!
Needless to say I was terribly frightened, as there really are boys EVERYWHERE and I couldn't even think of a boy country with a no-extradition policy. I was in big trouble, and am currently running a mirror under my car before I drive to school. Frightening stuff.
Fantastic, fun reunion with great eating, a great slide show / genealogical presentation, and, as you can see from my pic above, another great shirt. After the last non-nuclear iP-er cleared the house, we settled into a stupor in the living room, eventually watching the single episode of Caprica that was, I'd say, pretty good.
Got up early the next morning to see Greg and Meghan off, who's next worldwide whirlwind adventure takes them to Boston. Who knows what crazy antics they'll get into (oh, and Meghan got her bag back, btw, before the reunion festivities got going. So she had clothes AND we got to enjoy some gin-like Dutchness. Claps!)? I went for a run up Cobb's Hill, and between the frigid 65 degree air and the hills - we don't have those round here in AZ* - I struggled a litle though made it okay. Cleaned up and headed to a very crowded diner for brunch with everybody who was still in town, which meant, among other things, that poor Annie had an entire restaurant sing her happy birthday. Beck spent the early afternoon visiting a high school friend and her new twins; I read the hours away and watched a Cubs game (They may have even won, as I recall). We all got back and performed the ancient Sunday afternoon iP-rite, which means that we read on our various media, ate some chips and hot dogs, and otherwise lounged the weekend away. Very fun times; we had to get way up the next morning exceedingly early (5:15 aka 2:15 PHX time, yech) to make our flight, and the iParents were nice enough to get up and take us to the airport.
So another year, another reunion. I even obliquely met Skeeter for the first time. Out of control! All in all, the reunion was lovely as always, and as usual, I heard the hot dogs were quite excellent.
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